The Quickening eBook

When he recrossed the stream, at a point some distance
above the boy-time perch pools, the serving foot-log
chanced to be that used by the Little Zoar folk coming
from beyond the boundary hills. Following the
windings of the path he presently came out in the rear
of the weather-beaten, wooden-shuttered church standing,
blind-eyed and silent, in week-day desertion in the
midst of its groving of pines.

The spot was rife with memories, and Tom passed around
the building to the front, treading softly as on hallowed
ground. Whatever the future might hold for him,
there would always be heart-stirring recollections
to cluster about this frail old building sheltered
by the whispering pines.

How many times he had sat on the steps in the door-opening
days of boyhood, looking out across the dusty pike
and up to the opposing steeps of Lebanon lifting the
eastward horizon half-way to the zenith! Leg-weariness,
and a sudden desire to live over again thus much of
the past turning him aside, he went to sit on the
highest of the three steps, with the brooding silence
for company and the uplifted landscape to revamp the
boyhood memories.

The sun had set for Paradise Valley, but his parting
rays were still volleying in level lines against the
great gray cliffs at the top of Lebanon, silvering
the bare sandstone, blackening the cedars and pines
by contrast, and making a fine-lined tracery, blue
on gray, of the twigs and leafless branches of the
deciduous trees. Off to the left a touch of sepia
on the sky-line marked the chimneys of Crestcliffe
Inn, and farther around, and happily almost hidden
by the shouldering of the hills, a grayer cloud hung
over the industries at Gordonia.

Nearer at hand were the wooded slopes of the Dabney
lands—­lordly forests culled and cared for
through three generations of land-lovers until now
their groves of oaks and hickories, tulip-trees and
sweet-and black-gums were like those the pioneers
looked on when the land was young.

Thomas Jefferson had the appreciative eye and heart
of one born with a deep and abiding love of the beautiful
in nature, and for a time the sunset ravishment possessed
him utterly. But the blurring of the fine-lined
traceries and the fading of the silver and the gray
into twilight purple broke the spell. The postponed
resolve was the thing present and pressing. His
mother was as nearly recovered as she was ever likely
to be, and his uncle would be returning to South Tredegar
in the morning. The evil tale must be told while
there was yet one to whom his mother could turn for
help and sympathy in her hour of bitter disappointment.

He was rising from his seat on the church step when
he heard sounds like muffled groans. Recovering
quickly from the first boyish startle of fear oozing
like a cool breeze blowing up the back of his neck,
he saw that the church door was ajar. By cautiously
adding another inch to the aperture he could see the
interior of the building, its outlines taking shape
when his eyes had become accustomed to darkness relieved
only by the small fan-light over the door. Some
one was in the church: a man, kneeling, with
clasped hands uplifted, in the open space fronting
the rude pulpit. Tom recognized the voice and
withdrew quickly. It was his Uncle Silas, praying
fervently for a lost sheep of the house of Israel.